AB13
BB13

Burgeoning Eucalypt (OVP13)- Patchwork Literary

 

SFM13

Beach (AB13)

Tides are relentless
No matter how hard the rock
the water will win

Cake (SFM13)

There’s nothing like a cake
to take your blues away
whatever cake you bake
will improve a dreary day
Brownies, sponge, cheesecake too
I don’t really care –
Biscuits and pies also do
the same job, to be fair.

Tim Fellows

Simoom

OVP13

The eyes multiply everything
seen through the window
of this Bedouin tent.

I halve down the number
of the arid trees
swaying to Simoom.

Splitting in two – my cairns of reality,
thus I stay in touch with
my senses and bridge those with the scene,

with the goat skin bayt al-shar,
rugs and cloth curtains,
heat and the void

I dig and dig desperately
for meaning. Didn’t they say
in zero mind finds a proof and a theorem?

I halve my proofs. A part truth is no verity.
In wind shivers the roof summit.

Kushal Poddar

This Be The Verse About Apples Not Falling Far From The Tree (BB13)

Too many inherited traits:
Rosey noses, pipped eyes, dimpled chins;
Tired, predictable facial expressions;
Bad habits and deepening obsessions.

Apples grow too heavy for the branch,
Fall straight down, hard on the grass:
Some will roll a little way;
Some will get scrumped and cidered.

Scatter your children like a sycamore tree,
Let them helicopter and spiral.
Help them escape your faults and miseries
Or they’ll leave you in a cheap nursing home to die.

Jamie Woods

Myths (all images)

Isle of Apples and life never-ending,
desert land of unicorns and manticores,
that send red-raging sands, hoof-trod, flying.

Land of plenty, salmon-wise in its dripping juice,
and wasteland of thirst, blooming in brilliace
humming with bright birds where water falls,

abundance of sweet honey, and deer
caught with the west wind in our hair,
and pressed fruit, sorbets and the slick fire of mead,

we walk in myth, dream in legends,
our feet rooted in clay, arms spread,
winged, we feel our feathers fledge.

Jane Dougherty

Online Dating

IMAGE Sara fm13

I created my love bio @ e-partner.com,
I wanted to look younger,
cultured, photo-shopped
a phew pounds lighter.

I was looking for someone special,
masculine, muscles, tattoos
and a hairy chest.
Someone to satisfy my dark days.

So I found my beefcake and ate him up,
so sweet he was on my tongue.
He brought muffins, croissants, cheesecake,
the chocolate brownies clinched it for me.

Finding a lover online is never easy
you just have to accept your cookies
forget about the calories
and life can be so sweet.

Paul Dyson

Seeds of Truth (BB13)

Me, afraid
of heights?
spiders? Nope.
Apples. Not
because of Eve
& the Garden.
No, I’m afraid
of disappointment.
The promise
of a juicy crunch
then a bite
of mealy flesh.
I’m afraid
of what apples say
about aging &
imperfection.
Pedigree. Status.
Do you fill
your fruit bowl
with organic
heirloom varieties
or red delicious?
Do you avoid
those with bruises
or waxy skin?
Disdain apples
packed in
a plastic bag?

Lynne Jensen Lampe

Between the Light and the Dark is an Exquisite Corpse

What can you make with Apples?
Muffins and pie, cookies and brownies
Butter and tea, cheesecake and bowers.
So hungry as I draw –
Outside the curtain of an orchard –
Circuitous with curtains atlases
and navigational branding epistolary.
Understanding is lost to the blossoms.

Who shall labour – who do they belong to?
Trees like wind stations. Blowing thru
blue-grey skies, so many apples
in abundance – To gather them up
from the yards, behind the compounds
before they turn rotten, to
gather them, where they fall.
As soon as I have the energy to rise and
put down reading this fascinating book
On Tropes of Imperialism: ‘Writings from
An indentured Sailor-scribe
in His Majesty’s Employ’:

— “We arrived at the
Shore of an unknown land. Rocks
And sea, sea and rocks, our Captain
Down with Scurvy, rats scurrying
Up and down the decks – We
Shall have to repair the ship before
We can head further. Attend to our
Role as seed bearers of culture and
Civilization. The world
Is a strange and terrifying place. Today,
We named this Island for the King. Though
Half of us are near dead. There are no
Fruit bearing trees. It is exhilarating
In its way

To map the abounding emptiness. This
Morning from ship, I spoke to the
Tumbling boulders of Monster-Shaped
Demons rising as if from out of the
Sea, I spoke to the endless wind.”

Robert Frede Kenter

Fallen Apples (BB13)

A man in white trousers guarding apples
Someone is knocking them from the branches
The cider makers are the chief suspects
But school children have also been accused
Then a local farmer let his pigs out
The village was up in arms about it.

The police were called in to keep order.
They said it was a case for special branch
That’s how the newspapers got hold of it.
Then out of the blue came a weatherman
He said it was due to very strong winds
That were expected at this time of year
The authorities followed protocols
And declared the apples were all windfalls

Frank Colley

Bios and Links

Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

is an Indian-Australian painter, poet, and improv pianist. She is a self-taught artist who has been painting and exhibiting for over 20 years. Her work has been featured in several journals including Amsterdam Quarterly yearbook, Pithead Chapel, Two Thirds North, Kissing Dynamite Poetry,  and Stonecoast Review. She has been nominated multiple times for the Best of the Net. She lives and works in Sydney on the traditional lands of The Eora Nation.  Find her @oormilaprahlad and www.instagram.com/oormila_paintings

Sara Fatima Mir

Born on the 26th of July, 2007, in Islamabad , Sara Fatima is a Pakistani of Kashmiri origin. Gifted by nature with an inborn aesthetic sense, she is passionate about art. It is not just a hobby for her, rather it is a well settled heart and soul, way of life which inspires her to visualize the fine beauty and form in the world around. She has won numerous art competitions at school level. She is a natural artist and has completed the following two Courses : a) Graphic Designing -2020 b) Resin Art Skills -2022 from the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Finishing School, Islamabad Capital Territory Pakistan. This learning has further enhanced her artistic skills . International Participation in Art and Poetry Project: Rucksack A Global Poetry Patchwork 2022 A Poetry Project by Ms Antje Stehn of Italy and Mamta Sagar of India. Sara made a Teapot with the help of dried teabags. A requirement .Its image is on display at the Poetry Museum Italy. Sara Fatima Mir believes Art connects people by portraying their lives. Different people, different drawings, different stories. Using all sorts of mediums, she flaunts her amateur talent and aspires to learn more to become the best version of herself. Please Follow her on Instagram @sketchfilez

Beth Brooke

is a Dorset-based poet and her writing is grounded in the Wessex landscape and history. Her debut pamphlet, A Landscape With Birds was published by Hedgehog Poetry in July 2022. Her second pamphlet, Transformations, will be published by Hedgehog next year. The poems are all inspired by the work of Dame Elisabeth Frink, the sculptor and artist.

Aaron Bowker

based in the United States is a super self-critical Virgo, walking a path between worlds while dabbling in art, photography, and poetry. Poems have been featured in Failed Haiku, Cold Moon Journal, The Wombwell Rainbow, and Heterodox Haiku Journal, with art featured in The Hooghly Review, The Wombwell Rainbow, and Black & White Haifa/Haisha. Special thank you to Jerome Berglund for being my mentor and pushing me to limits otherwise unexplored.

Robert Frede Kenter

is a writer, pushcart nominee & visual artist with work in many venues, on line and in print, incl: Storms Journal, Anthropocene, Fevers Of, Acropolis Journal, CutbowQuarterly, Anti-heroin chic and many others, as well as books including EDEN (2021) a visual poetry collection, and Audacity of Form (ice floe press, 2019). Work in anthologies: Book of Penteract (Penteract Press, 2022), and Seeing in Tongues, an anthology forthcoming from Steel Incisors (2023). Robert is publisher & EIC of Ice Floe Press, www.icefloepress.net.

Jamie Woods

Swansea-based Jamie Woods is poet-in-residence at the charity Leukaemia Care. His work has been published in Poetry Wales, Lucent Dreaming, Ink Sweat & Tears and more. Jamie’s debut pamphlet Rebel Blood Cells is out in June, and can be pre-ordered from https://www.punkdust.com/shop
https://www.jamiewoods77.com

Jane Dougherty

lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.

Paul Dyson

is from Swinton, Rotherham, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
He says –

“We all have an urge to be creative
whether it’s art, poetry, music . . .
or just putting together flat pack furniture,
being creative keeps us alive and feeling human”

Paul gave up his day job 5 years ago to dabble in art, poetry and music, and hopes the passion in his Art reaches and touches the hearts of fellow humans too.

Merril D. Smith

lives in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published in journals including Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Acropolis, and Humana Obscura, and anthologies, such as the recent Our Own Coordinates: Poems about Dementia (Sidhe Press). Her full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts, was published by Nightingale & Sparrow Press, and was a Black Bough Poetry Book of the Month.

Twitter: @merril_mds  Instagram: mdsmithnj  Blog: merrildsmith.org

Tim Fellows

is a writer from Chesterfield in Derbyshire whose ideas are heavily influenced by his background in the local coalfields, where industry and nature lived side by side. His first pamphlet “Heritage” was published in 2019. His poetic influences range from Blake to Owen, Causley to Cooper-Clarke and more recently the idea of imagistic poetry and the work of Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez.

Lynne Jensen Lampe’s

debut collection, Talk Smack to a Hurricane (Ice Floe Press, 2022) concerns mother-daughter relationships, mental illness, and antisemitism. Her poems appear in many journals, including THRUSH, Figure 1, and Yemassee. A finalist for the 2020 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize, she edits academic research in mid-Missouri, where she lives with her husband and two dogs. Visit her at https://lynnejensenlampe.com; on Twitter/Spoutible @LJensenLampe; or Instagram @lynnejensenlampe.

Frank Colley

lives in South Yorkshire and has been writing poetry all his life. He is an active member of the Read to Write Group and has performed his poems at a wide variety of venues including CAST in Doncaster. His poems have appeared in several anthologies.
He is an admirer of Edward Thomas. His collection “The Story of Soldier A” was published by Glass Head Press in 2022. His self published pamphlet “The Nantcol Sonnets” both are available on eBay.

Kushal Poddar

The author of ‘Postmarked Quarantine’ has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of ‘Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages.

Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe